Shortly after I started advertising Spirit of the Grey Ghost in the Weimaraner of America magazine, I received a call from a doctor and his wife asking if I did portraits. This is how I met Max, one of the most beautiful and spirited Weimaraners I've had the pleasure of painting.

Max was a grand champ and the center of the couples' lives. I came to their home in Wilmington, Delaware, met max, saw the iron bars put up in the kitchen's plate glass window so Max would not go through it again chasing after a squirrel and the tall fence that he also required for his own safety.

Over the course of the next few months, the painting, which in full shows him coming out of a forest path, was finished and the doctor and his wife took it home delighted. Several hours later I received a call from them.

When they hung the painting of Max on the wall in their beautiful, art treasure filled home, and stood back to look at it, Max walked in, looked in the direction they were looking in, ran over, put his feet on the wall under his portrait, barked twice sharply and looked like he was smiling.

Over the years I've had many wonderful complements about my portraiture from smiles to tears of joy and recognition, but this is the first time one of man's best friends gave such a wonderful nod of approval.